I just got back from seeing Jimmy Buffett at Jazz Fest 2015, so I’ll open up this newsletter with a line from a favorite Jimmy Buffett song, “I’ve got a bartender ear, a beachcomber style, piratical nerve, and a vaudevillian style . . .” (Schoolboy Heart). It’s that “piratical nerve” line that reminds me so…
A Jesus Centered Community of Scripture, Faith, and Grace
Posts from April 2015
As humans, we tend to make things difficult for ourselves. We find ways to create stress and trouble. For example, we like to be busy. It’s considered weird in our society if we have a lot of spare time, so we work all day and go home to more work. It’s exhausting and it drains…
“Do as I say, not as I do.” This is often the mantra of parents everywhere. They want their children to grow up well, but they know that they are not perfect. So when they make a mistake, they tell their children, “Do as I say, not as I do.” Jesus was not like that.…
Have you ever had a bad substitute teacher? I recall hearing about one at my high school. He was a fairly regular substitute until one day, he was talking to one of my classmates who was going through a hard time. He supposedly told her that she would be better off committing suicide. This was…
I have some friends who refuse to watch the news. They say it’s because it’s too depressing and violent. They come away after watching the news with a sense that there is nothing good in the world, because the reporters only talk about the bad things while ignoring the good things. This reminds me of…
Ask anyone who studies communication and they will tell you that “non-verbal communication” is important. One theorist (Albert Mehrabian) thinks that non verbals comprise up to 93% of the component parts of all personally communicated messages. Hand gestures and tone of voice are key, as well as facial expression and body posture. Similarly, in the…
“See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are,” begins 1st John 3. “The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.” We can see the love of the Father all around us. We…
In normal conversation, there are some things that are easy to talk about. We can bring up school, or work, or family and friends, or any recreational activities we’re involved with. We might even mention what church we go to. However, there’s one thing we rarely talk about, and that’s our faith. We have this…
When I was a senior on my high school track team, our coach came up with this theme for the season: “U Inspired?” The “U” represented my school, Urbandale, and also the pronoun “you,” to indicate that each of us should be inspired. The idea was that we would run faster, jump better, and throw…
Thomas gets a bad rap. Commonly referred to as “Doubting Thomas,” he claims that he needs to see and touch Jesus before he would be willing to believe that Jesus is alive. But how different are we from Thomas? After all, it’s pretty hard to believe that Jesus is alive sometimes. We haven’t seen him,…